Messages

106

General discussion forum / No Rx control from Remote RRC

« on: 2013-04-22, 16:47:18 »

Before I make the trip down there, I thought I'd see if there was something I could do from here to fix this.

The Remote RRC has stopped taking Rx commands from the Control RRC.  We can connect, get Rx audio, and the yellow light shines on the Control RRC, but we don't get the remote K3 Rx info on the control K3, i.e. no radio data is being received.  The control K3 display just gets frozen, and no button pushing or knob turning makes a difference, nor changes the audio received.

I have gone in through the VPN and restarted the Remote RRC, but that didn't fix it.  I made sure the Control K3 is in TERM mode, so that isn't it.  Any one else have any suggestions?

Dennis W1UE

107

General discussion forum / Re: rf feedback

« on: 2013-04-19, 00:44:48 »

Oms

How do you hear the feedback?  Is it in the audio stream from the Remote Rig unit?  Can you hear it if you listen to your on-air
signal?

What kind of audio cut- transmit or receive?  I occasionally lose Rx audio on my unit, and must reconnect.  It happens irregularly but its been about 10 hours of operation since it last happened.  Is that what you mean?

Dennis W1UE

108

General discussion forum / Re: Writelog and FSK

« on: 2013-03-20, 11:39:34 »

I'm not a WL guru, but I've had good success with N1MM Logger, and have it working well in RTTY with the RR modules.  For some ideas that you may find work in WL, read my posting under "Hardware, Cabling, and Installations", last reply on 2013-01-05.  You may find something there that will work in WL.

Dennis W1UE

109

Hardware, Cabling, Installations / Re: Line Out level signal on the TTL RR Ctrl side?

« on: 2013-03-20, 11:35:54 »

Franco, I had the same problem.  The minimum signal from the Ctrl RR was too high a level for the soundboard I was using, and I was using the Line Input on the soundboard.  I went in and changed the "Radio Settings-Codec Out Gain" from the default 255 to
a value of 230.  Now the sound board isn't overdriven by RTTY signals.  I also put my headphones on the output of the soundboard, so I still have plenty of audio for CW and SSB.

Dennis W1UE

110

Configuration, RRC 1258 / Re: SSB Mode Monitoring/PTT Delay

« on: 2013-03-10, 22:09:30 »

The Rx Jitter Buffer is 12, the delay is 8.  The manual says to make them 4 and 3, but I'm pretty sure mine arrived from Elecraft with the 12/8 numbers in there.  Should I try the 4/3 numbers?

Also, under the "Advanced" tab, there is a place for "Elecraft Advanced"- its either a yes or a no.  There is no description of what that does in the manual on the website, nor in any of the Elecraft documentation.  What does it do?

W1UE

111

Configuration, RRC 1258 / Re: SSB Mode Monitoring/PTT Delay

« on: 2013-03-10, 15:23:36 »

I went back and did some further testing this morning.  Now I'm not sure what I was doing before, but now a setting of PTT Off Mute Delay of 175 completely removes any audio coming back to me.  A 165 setting still results in a small blip of audio, but 175 stops it all.  Only thing left now is to try it in a contest atmosphere and see if the 175 setting loses too many first dits/dahs of a replying signal.

I tried the settings you suggested, and I totally agree- the audio that is making the full round trip is very distracting.  I know we were getting transmit audio some other way before, because it was directly in step when I was talking.  Not sure how I was getting it.

Thanks.  Dennis W1UE

112

Configuration, RRC 1258 / SSB Mode Monitoring/PTT Delay

« on: 2013-03-10, 01:51:43 »

What setting controls the ability to hear yourself when you're transmitting SSB?  Seems to me at one time I was able to hear myself talking, but now its not there.  Not sure what I did to make it go away, if I did anything.  Using 2.61.

Another question: when I changeover from Xmit to Rx, I hear a "blip" or a snippet of the last thing that I said.  When I tweak
the "PTT OFF Mute Delay" above 10, then the footswitch now longer puts the radio into transmit.  I would like to lengthen the delay before I start hearing the Rx audio again, but I find I either have to hear it or it won't go into transmit with the footswitch.  Any guidance on what number works there?

Thanks.

Dennis W1UE

113

Configuration, RRC 1258 / Re: N1MM CAT Control and Keying

« on: 2013-01-04, 01:15:12 »

Tim

See my posting of 9/25 under Configuration- I resolved almost all the issues
at that time, including the RTTY issue.  For RTTY, I was transmitting without
having an audio decoder hooked up; once I ran the audio stream to a USB
soundcard and decoded it, the transmitter would unkey when the RX command
was passed to it.  It occasionally still hangs up, as I noted below, but it isn't
just when run in RTTY.

Somewhere on the Elecraft website I found a statement that there are 2
known bugs in the Elecraft firmware- one is the releasing of the Xmit LED on the
front of the control K3; the radio drops transmit, but the LED stays lit.  There
was one other bug, but I don't recall what it was.

Since the unit has been set up, I've made over 2000 QSOs in various contests
using SSB, CW, and RTTY.   I've probably lost contact with the Remote Unit
maybe twice every contest, and turning the control K3 off and turning it back
on has re-established communications each time. 

 Hope to work you this weekend in RTTY RU.  I'll be at the remote station,
doing a full SO2R test.

Dennis W1UE

114

Configuration, RRC 1258 / Configuring Remote Rig and N1MM Logger

« on: 2012-09-25, 15:28:06 »

A word of advice before you start to configure any two systems together, is to make sure that each is working successfully by itself.  If it doesn't work successfully by itself, chances are great that the two won't work together! 

When doing the Microbit setup, 4 Virtual Com Ports were created (Com0-3) for Remote Rig to use, and were tied in to specific hardware ports in the computer.  You should go into Device Manager and write down the 4 comport pairs- you will need this info.  If your comport numbers for the 1st 3 comports are less than 8, you're all set, otherwise you need to make all but the FSK comport to be 8 or less.

Radio CAT for RR Control Unit
1. Connect DB9 cable direct from computer to radio.  Choose a comport that is NOT in use as a virtual comport.  For my K3, I use Com1 (a real hardware comport) and 38400N81-Off-Off; make sure the radio control works.
2. Unplug RS232 Cable from computer to K3, and plug it into RRControl Com1.
3. Plug in RS232 Cable from RRControl Com2 to K3.
4. Radio Control through the Computer should now work- verify.

CW Keying
1. Connect the USB cable from a USB port on the computer to the RRControl.
2. Using one of the virtual comports you identified, config N1MM using the computer Com port number; in my case, Com 3 was the comport I used, and it was tied to RR Com0.  In N1MM, I configured Com3 for "CW/Other", and set "DTR to CW".
3. Open a browser and go to the IP for the RRControl box.  Under IO settings, make "USB DTR as CW" to be "COM0", submit and update.
4. The remote rig should now be keyed via N1MM messages.

SSB
1. The supplied microphone cable was of no use to me, as I don't have a mike with an 8-pin DIN plug, so I made my own cable using a CAT5 end from a damaged piece of cable, a 3.5mm stereo jack, and a phono jack.  If you make your own cable, Mike Hot is the Green/White striped wire, Mike Ground is the Blue wire, PTT Hot is the Blue/White striped wire, and PTT Gnd is the green wire.  This was from a standard CAT5 cable piece.
2. I could not figure out a way to use VOX on the unit without an outboard carrier operated relay type setup. 

RTTY
1. The manual shows the correct way to setup MMTTY.  If you use MMTTY version 1.68A, it will support comports up to 15.  I went back to Device Manager, and made my virtual FSK Comport to be Com15.
2. There is nothing to setup in N1MM; just put Comport 15 into MMTTY.
3. The audio from the RRControl unit to the Sound card was too high a level, so I had to reduce the Radio Settings- Codec Out Gain to 220.
4. A tip- hook up the decoding audio chain before you try and transmit.  I didn't hook up the audio  decoding and transmitted, and MMTTY doesn't drop back into Rx unless the audio decoding is hooked up.  Now I can use N1MM to send RTTY messages via Remote Rig.

Radio Control- Remote Unit
1. My remote unit is housed at a contest station, and we wanted to minimize recabling when going from Remote to normal station use.  Just follow the setup for the RR Control Unit above and it works just fine.

One more tip:
I'm using the K3 Twin concept with the Remote Rig.  When I turned on the Control Radio and it was already in TERM mode, the audio was not muted and didn't mute unless I went to NORM mode and then back to TERM mode.  To avoid this problem, I reduce AF Gain to minimum and THEN turn on the Control K3.  When it connects, there is no audio from the Control K3.

Please feel free to contact me if there are questions concerning the above.  WinTest and Writelog should be able to be configured to Remote Rig just as easily.

Dennis W1UE

 

115

Configuration, RRC 1258 / Re: N1MM CAT Control and Keying

« on: 2012-09-06, 01:57:15 »

Thanks for the tip.  After several hours work, I finally got a stable setup that will allow communications between the K3s and N1mM Logger and send CW via the program.  I can also report that the Elecraft K3 cables do provide RTTY signals to the radio, as I was able to key RTTY on the first try.  I still don't have the PTT releasing the transmitter when the RTTY message is finished, but
that's tomorrow's job.

I find it takes a relatively long time to do things by trial and error.  Once I make a change, or several changes to any of the RRC setups, I have to apply it and let the unit restart.  That takes 10 seconds or so, then I found I needed to turn the Control K3 off and then back on to restart the unit.  When I did that, the control K3 was still in TERM mode, and when turned back on the speaker audio (although it wasn't the audio from the remote radio) was on, so to mute it I had to take the K3 out of TERM mode and then put it back into TERM mode for the speaker to be muted.  To make one small change might take 5 minutes to see the effect.  I chased my tail for awhile until I finally had the procedure down pat.

Thanks for your help.  I came up with a slightly different configuration, but your reply pointed me in the right direction.

Dennis W1UE

116

Configuration, RRC 1258 / N1MM CAT Control and Keying

« on: 2012-09-05, 01:11:29 »

I spent about an hour working on this today and couldn't find settings that worked, so I thought I'd ask to see if someone had already invented this wheel.

I have the Remote Rig setup using Program Mode 14, K3 Twin.  I have Two K3s linked together; they change frequency, key, basically do everything that I want to do.  Now, I want to tie the Remote Rig setup into the N1MM Logger Program to retrieve frequency/mode/send CW/send RTTY.  I have the following ports available in the Control RRC:
Com1 (real serial port)
Com2 (real serial port)
RRC1258 Com0 (com3)
RRC1258 Com1 (com4)
RRC1258 Com2 (com5)
RRC1258 Comfsk (com6)
In N1MM, I can reference and connect to any of those ports.  I also have the USB cable that could provide another path into
the Control RRC.

I have gone over the documentation several times, but apparently don't understand the connections between the virtual ports and the real ports.  My understanding is that the Com0, Com1, and Com2 are the Control RRC ports, and the Com1,2,3,4,5,6 are computer ports separate and distinct from the Control RRC ports, and are the port numbers that I would reference in N1MM.  I am using MMTTY, but haven't gotten as far as configuring it yet, so I don't know if I can find the info I need in the setups that are already in the documentation,  but if someone has a setup that works for all 3 areas I would appreciate a copy of it.

BTW, the basic Remote Rig setup works great.  So far, I only have it on my home network; I think the part in the documentation about getting it all working before you install the remote setup was great advice.  Once I have this all working, I know I have a working setup and only have to add in the Internet path between the rigs.

Thanks in advance.

Dennis W1UE

117

Configuration, RRC 1258 / Adding Winkey/Computer Keying

« on: 2012-09-04, 14:38:15 »

Going over the documentation, I see that I can add computer keying to the Control unit by making up a jumper to the I/O port.
The computer keying would be through N1MM Logger to a Winkey, and would take Pin 4 of the I/O port to ground at Pin 8 when the rig was being keyed.

Is there anyway to change the configuration to use the paddle jack to do the same?  Is there anyway to do computer keying without adding the additional cable?

Dennis W1UE